Hate Me
by titangirl161
Summary: one-shot Sanzo knows he's headed for a pain he can't handle, and he knows he has to end it, no matter how much it hurts him.


Scribble: Hey everyone, I'm here, writing, because my poor authoress is on the floor crying, which I'll explain in a minute. As we promised, this is a Saiyuki one shot we were working on. However, this is the sad one, and now she's so sad she can't even type, so I'm being nice and putting it down for her.

Me: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Scribble: So I'm gonna finish this before I drown in here. We do not own Saiyuki. We never did and never will. This story was inspired by the song Hate Me by Blue October, which we also do not own.

Props to What2callmyself for her beta! Yay! 3

Hate Me

Sanzo wasn't sure where it started, but he knew he didn't like it.

He made the decision to keep Goku because he knew no one else could. That limiter came off, and the world might as well kiss its butt goodbye because when the Seiten Taisei went on a rampage, it wasn't pretty. That is, unless Sanzo was around to replace it. However, when it was Goku, the bottomless pit with the diadem, he was too much like a little kid to be left alone…a little kid that could take down a bear, but still a little kid.

So Sanzo told him he would be under his care. The monks weren't happy at first, but they got used to him, just as they got used to a Sanzo who wasn't the perfect picture of a high priest that he was supposed to be. It got increasingly obvious as time went by that Goku didn't need to be under Sanzo's care at all, that Goku was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, however he never left.

Sanzo didn't even notice it, really. After all, to him, Goku was just hanging around him for a lack of anywhere better to go and no real family. So he never realized that Goku had been sticking around for another reason.

Sanzo didn't even notice when times would come where Goku would complain of nightmares and sleep with him (although as time went by, those times were less and less frequent), or when Goku would help him on nights he was too drunk and ended up throwing up (not very frequently) and needed help getting into the bed. He didn't think much at first of the times when he and Goku would talk, and there were many things Goku trusted his opinions on completely and without question, even his warped views on hate and his own duty as a Sanzo. Or the times when Goku would try to get him to see the good points of himself when all he could see were his flaws.

He finally noticed one rainy night, when Sanzo was trying to sit there and hate himself, when Goku came in and the two started an argument which finally ended when Goku started to cry, yelling to Sanzo that he was never as bad as he thought he was and that he needed to forgive himself, when Sanzo felt something. A pang, one might say. And then Sanzo finally realized. He knew something was going on, and it had been all along, and he knew he wasn't going to like it when he figured out what it was.

Sanzo wasn't slow, but when it came to things within him, he was the king of slow wits. It took some time, but he finally figured it out, but not only did he not like it, but it actually scared him.

After all this time, he had finally learned to love someone again. A certain someone by the name of Goku.

He knew immediately that this was the worst case scenario, for two reasons. First, because he never wanted pain like that again. When he lost someone so important to him, he nearly lost himself. He could not, ever, risk that again. He never allowed himself to get close to people before for that very reason. And yet he had never realized that he had gotten close to Goku. He had vowed to himself that he would never care for someone so much he couldn't live if he lost them, but it seemed now that he broke that, because even in their every day skirmishes, he would worry if Goku was hurt or if he disappeared for a moment, if he was kidnapped. He knew that it could only end one way- he would lose him, and the pain would be even worse the second time.

The second reason was, it just wasn't fair, to either of them. Sanzo didn't deserve Goku, who would always smile at him, who would put his safety above his own, who looked up to him, almost revered him, his first real friend, for letting him free and taking care of him and wanted to do anything if it would make his caretaker happy. Sanzo did not deserve something like that.

Similarly, Goku deserved much better than Sanzo, who yelled at him, who overreacted and took out his anger on him, who smoked too much, drank too much, who repaid all the kindness Goku showed him with anger, and was overall just not a nice person to know. Goku deserved someone who would care for him, someone as kind as he was, and Sanzo knew he could never be that. He also knew he had to end it now, before it got harder and would get worse.

So he tried to drive him away indirectly. He yelled at him more, hit him more, threatened more, but it seemed in vain. It just made things worse, because he could see the hurt in Goku's eyes and it just made him feel even worse than before.

So there was no choice. He had to make him leave directly.

"Wha- what do you mean?" he asked Sanzo.

"Just what I said. The mission's over, and you can't stay here. It's time you left my side."

Goku stared, disbelieving. "Did I do something wrong?"

_No, never_, Sanzo thought, but said instead, "It's time you took care of yourself. You can't just hang around the temple forever."

Goku looked down, a strange look on his face. "I…I just always thought…I'd stay at the temple…that I'd stay with you."

Sanzo turned, knowing he wouldn't be able to take the look on his charge's face. "Well, you were wrong. You're old enough to care for yourself now, and there's no reason to stay with me anymore. So just stay at this village, and don't bother coming to visit me, because I won't see you even if you did." He started to walk away, and against his own advice, he turned to look at Goku, and saw tears trailing down his face. Immediately he wished he could take it all back, and he walked back to Goku, gently rubbing his head, and Goku, still sobbing, clutched at his robes, and all Sanzo could think was, _Please, make these tears stop, please just let him smile again, just like he used to. _

And then, still crying, he heard Goku's voice rasp into the fabric of his robes. "Why would you do this to me? I don't understand. How could you do this to me? Sanzo, I hate you!"

Something snapped in Sanzo at that moment. He went completely rigid in shock, freezing in place. Goku knew as soon as the words left his mouth that they were the completely wrong ones, and this was only verified by Sanzo's behavior right now. He looked up to the monk's face. "Sanzo?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

Sanzo leaned his head down to give Goku a miserable smile. "See? That's how it always was, you just couldn't say it until just now. This is best for the both of us." With that he let go of Goku and pulled himself away and walked away, not turning around this time.

Goku fell down to his knees in disbelief. He knew nothing he said could change what just happened now. He also couldn't reach Sanzo in his mind; his voice would never reach him again. He knew calling after him would do no good either, so with nothing to do, he just continued to cry.

And as Sanzo walked, he didn't notice that he was crying. And he was completely confused as to why- he had to do this. He had to push Goku away. It was best for both of them. He just couldn't understand why he was feeling a pain worse than he had ever felt in his life.

Scribble: (sighs) Another fine mess that fell out of your head.

Me: (still crying) That was so hard to write…I'm a happy endings fan, and the few fics with sad ending are always the hardest. Well, here it is. Fellow happy ending fan, never fear, because I have another left! And it has a happy ending! Yay! Then maybe a D. Gray Man fic. So keep a look out for the last one, it's coming. And let me know how this was, please? Worthless flames do not help me. Con crit and good reviews are much appreciated. Long Live the Sanzo-ikkou!

-titangirl161

~What2callmyself: See I did get to Beta this one! But now you made me sad! T_T Now it's your job to make me and everyone happy again! –sends titangirl161 off to write.-


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